Perthshire Colts 6 - Stirling County 40

Stirling County were made to work hard and found Shire's Colts no pushover

Shire's Colts put on a dogged display yesterday against County and made the visitors work hard for their win.

Ormie and Alastair can be proud of the effort and application shown by the boys as they stood up to a strong, well drilled County 15. The Shire pack were always up against it against a bigger and more athletic County front 8. That said, they never gave up and forced the County boys into making numerous handling errors and committing fouls to disrupt play.

County went into a 2 try lead but 2 penalties were fired over by Craig Letham keeping the Shire in touch. Home supporters were cheering loudly as Calum Blyth looked to have touched down for a try after a clearance was charged down but the County defence had managed to get there first.

Shire were only going to be effective in bursts and County defended their line well, thwarting the efforts of the Shire lads.

Stirling showed how well they were drilled with some slick passing and lines being run that saw the half time score increase to 6 - 28.

The second half saw Shire giving it a real go, County resorted to persistent fouling in loose play as Kyle MacKinnon led the pack into contact. A County forward took one for the team and was yellow carded then the referee saw fit to further disrupt play and Shire's momentum by lecturing a further 2 County players for similar misdemeanours. County ran in 2 late tries to seal the win but there was little disgrace in the defeat. Given previous drubbings against County who have a massive squad of players regularly turning out for both games and training - 'the boys done good.'

We need to make best use of what we have to continue to progress - yesterdays' scrums and lineouts were poorer than we would have hoped for - training and practice will make this better. there are three games on the bounce now against the Fifers of Dunfermline, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy - lets' build on this good performance and show them what we're made of.